And He Placed His Hands Where I Used to Be
by Broken Boys
Summary: This story contains spoilers for the Season 7 Finale. Dean ends up in a situation where he is without food and finds himself fighting a 'monster' he'd never expect. There is a more detailed summary within. Skinny!Dean.


**Title**: And He Placed His Hand Where I Used to Be  
**Pairing**: Gen  
**Rating**: PG-13 (a couple f-bombs)  
**Word Count**: 974  
**Summary**: _While in Purgatory, Dean has already been fooled too many times with fake Sam coming to rescue him, only to be led to tortures. When the real Sam finally comes to rescue him, Dean thinks it's another ploy to break him, another fake Sam. Weak and thin, Dean tries to fight Sam off, but in reality Sam has no difficulty trying to drag Dean to the door. Dean starts crying because he is not strong enough to fight him off, all the while begging not to be hurt again._

~ ~ ~

The first time 'Sam' rescues him, he ends up tied to a tree for what feels like days on end. There is no food. There is no water. The only thing he's left with when he's finally let go is an empty, aching stomach and a body covered in puncture wounds from where they'd fed off him.

The eyes he'd seen had been Sam's.

Time is different in this place of existing between heaven and hell, where monsters and spirits reign and the few unfortunate corporeals either have to fight to keep the flesh on their bones or end up as meat for the beasts.

Daylight and darkness come in spastic, unpredictable intervals. The burning intensity of the sun's rays makes the skin on his face, arms, and hands feel painfully tight and raw. The chill of the icy nights seeps into his bones and makes him shiver so hard he feels like his body is going to vibrate apart. There's nothing to eat where he is _except your flesh_ the monsters constantly whisper, and it's only when the hunger is so sharply intense and he can no longer think straight, that he reaches down into the slimy slithering soil beneath his boots and eats a disgusting mouthful of whatever it is he's picked up. _Whatever it takes to survive this place _he tells himself as he tries to ignore the feeling of the half-chewed still squirming worms moving about within his slowly collapsing guts.

The next time 'Sam' shows up to rescue him, he's ready to fight. He sees those eyes again that look like Sam's, and he sees the face of the man he raised from infancy. But this is not his brother. He fucking knows this isn't his brother. Yet, something in his heart defeats the battle with his brain, and his body once again ends up paying the price when he hesitates when going in for the kill.

The monster drags him through the woods, both ankles wrapped bruisingly tight in a giant paw much too large to belong to anything human. His tattered shirts are rucked up as he's dragged, and any and everything sharp on the ground along the seemingly never ending path takes its turn at digging, cutting, and biting into his back. Lack of food has made him painfully thin, and he can feel the way the bones in his back and the thin skin barely protecting them ripples as he bumps along the slimy slithering soil.

Time is different in this place of existing. Maybe it's weeks before he's let go. Maybe it's months. The monster lets him go, but it's fed off of him in a way that's left him more dead than alive. It fed off his screams. It fed off his pain. It fed off his emotions, both good and bad. It took and it took, until there wasn't enough left to satisfy its needs and then it tossed him away like a sack of useless garbage.

Because time is different, dying takes place in spastic, unpredictable intervals.

The scraps of clothing covering his body do nothing to protect him from the elements. He's more bones than anything else. His hair hangs long and tangled over his shoulders and down his back. It itches just like his skin, but he doesn't dare scratch either, the now darkened blood still under his fingernails a vivid reminder of the last time he did.

Every time exhaustion in its most pure form binds his eyelids together, he expects to wake in either heaven or hell. When neither comes, he spends another day huddled in the darkest, most secure place he can find with his twiglike arms wrapped around his completely concave stomach. He knows that he's all ribcage and hipbones and long, disgusting hair, and he wonders if this is the final step of cleansing in purgatory before he himself becomes a monster.

When 'Sam' shows up again to rescue him, he wants to fight. He wants to live, even though he's been more dead than alive now for too long. This is not his brother. He fucking knows this isn't his brother. He wants to fight with everything the last monster didn't sap from his soul, but it's simply not enough. He's too weak. He's too starved. There nothing left. 'Sam' approaches him with what looks like fake plastic tears on his face as he bodily pulls a weakly struggling Dean from his hiding place and lifts him into his arms.

Dean struggles and never realizes he's sobbing.

The more he struggles, the tighter the arms holding him become. They become so tight around him that he can barely breathe. He fails to hear the rapid litany of _it's me, it's me, please, Dean._. All he knows is that this can't be his Sam as they both pass through a blindly white light.

~ ~ ~

When Dean opens his eyes again, he's lying on a soft, warm bed.

Most of the tangled, dirty hair on his head has been cut away.

Sam, his Sam, is sitting beside him with a look on his face that's so sad he finds himself opening his mouth to ask 'what's wrong?' before Sam places a finger on his lips to silence him.

Sam dips the warm, soapy rag that he's been ever so carefully rubbing over Dean's skin back into the basin, squeezing out some of the filth as it soaks, and rings it out again as he resumes gently cleaning his brother's deteriorated body.

Hot tears slip from Dean's eyes as his sunken stomach gives off a deep, rumbling growl.

Matching tears run down Sam's face as the rag is wiped carefully over said stomach, and Sam places his other hand over Dean's still beating heart to remind them both that he's still alive.

~end~


End file.
